RussR
En-Route
The question would be, how many people who are likely to be in this situation would even know that? I'd bet that the FSDO just asking for the SP's logbooks would result in some quick backpedaling more often than not.
- Status
It may not even go that far.
Falsifying Pilot: "Hey buddy. I'm being investigated by the FAA. I put your name in as my safety pilot on a few flights I needed for currency. Will you back me up if they call?"
Buddy:
midwestpa24
Final Approach
The FAA takes falsification pretty seriously. If you are willing to falsify one document, what is stopping you from doing to others? Aviation is largely built on the honor system, and if you break that honor you can't be trusted. One false entry in a logbook makes that entire logbook suspect. After all, how can they trust anything you wrote in there.
Once upon a time when I was in college, one of my fellow students thought he had a smart way to "build" time. He figured if he padded his logbook with school aircraft, it would be too easy to trace. While in school he worked the line for the FBO, so he decided to use random tail numbers of transient aircraft he would fuel while working, thinking it would be harder to track.
At his next checkride, the DPE noticed something familiar in his logbook. He started asking him ,"Oh you've flown N12345? Was it a good plane?" Dummy didn't realize the trap that was being set, and played it off, "Oh yes, it was a real nice plane."
Then the DPE dropped the bomb, "Interesting, you see I've owned N12345 for the last 20 years, and I don't recall ever letting you fly it." Our ambitious student had inadvertently picked the DPE's personal plane to pad his logbook. DPE kept his logbook, turned it into the FAA, and said student transferred out of the aviation program.
Once upon a time when I was in college, one of my fellow students thought he had a smart way to "build" time. He figured if he padded his logbook with school aircraft, it would be too easy to trace. While in school he worked the line for the FBO, so he decided to use random tail numbers of transient aircraft he would fuel while working, thinking it would be harder to track.
At his next checkride, the DPE noticed something familiar in his logbook. He started asking him ,"Oh you've flown N12345? Was it a good plane?" Dummy didn't realize the trap that was being set, and played it off, "Oh yes, it was a real nice plane."
Then the DPE dropped the bomb, "Interesting, you see I've owned N12345 for the last 20 years, and I don't recall ever letting you fly it." Our ambitious student had inadvertently picked the DPE's personal plane to pad his logbook. DPE kept his logbook, turned it into the FAA, and said student transferred out of the aviation program.
bentmettle
Pre-Flight
Someone that just passes their IR in a flight school presumably needs to work on commercial and CFI. It doesn't take 6 months to get either of those and I'd hope they're both done before the ink is dry on the instrument ticket. If they can't afford to push that time frame, they can't afford to recreationally fly in IMC.
Which is all to say, this person, if they're real, is doing a really dumb thing, for a very dumb and pointless reason.
Which is all to say, this person, if they're real, is doing a really dumb thing, for a very dumb and pointless reason.
True, but if the "buddy" in this scenario is also a fledgling time-builder, wouldn't the failure to log what is eminently loggable flight time itself be suspicious?
AvNavCom
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GroundLoopArtiste
This.
After all the money, time, effort, and pride I have put into my skills and credentials as a pilot, if someone came up to me and said they had involved my name in a deliberate falsification because they were too stupid, lazy, or prideful to get a safety pilot and do it properly, I would probably be hard-pressed to not resort to physical violence. Hell, I'd probably go to the FAA myself to try to get that person's certificates revoked. Lack of personal integrity makes me angry. Such people have no business in our community.
Maybe. It counts to meet "flight time" requirements and can also be used to meet "PIC" time requirements (but not cross country requirements). But the "common wisdom" (an oxymoron) is, not only are potential employers not impressed with safety pilot time but are put off by logbooks which contain it.
It may actually be the private pilot trying to build time for insurance premium benefits that is most interested in logging the time rather than time builders.
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MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
Maybe the OP should drop a dime and let us know what happens.
Chip Sylverne
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Quit with the negative waves, man.
I fly as safety pilot for a lot of guys and never log a minute. A lot of it is at the airport "hey, ya got a half hour? I need 3." If the FAA called me to confirm time spent with one of my friends on any specific date, I would probably have not a clue.
If they said I did, I did.
If they said I did, I did.
Witmo
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Tim
Is a safety pilot required to log anything in his logbook? I think not. Even for just flying, a pilot doesn't need to log any flights unless they are to prove currency or are used for a ratings requirement. Some pilots who don't intend to carry passengers or fly under IFR or pursue further ratings, don't bother logging any flights.
Stevel
Pre-takeoff checklist
There most certainly IS a "don't bother" file, as Tools and I have both experienced it.
In my case, a friend and I went to the FSBO for a pre-arranged appointment and having the general subject of that meeting already communicated. I brought annotated video of a sightseeing operation with newly-minted Sport Pilots flying the unsuspecting general public in E-LSAs. The FSBO Officer of the Day took the appointment and wouldn't talk to us about any of the specifics, wouldn't accept the DVD with the video, wouldn't watch the video with us, nada, nothing, zilch.
He said that that he had to have seen it with his own eyes for it to be valid for the investigation. I suggested that they send someone to buy a flight and see what happens. He claimed that doing so would be entrapment, which is absolute ********.
Entrapment is when you entice someone to do something that they might not have otherwise done. Walking up to an ongoing operation, selecting an experience off of the list on their poster and paying the price listed on that poster for the experience so that you can then observe whether or not they deliver that experience in a legal manner is nowhere near even the grey area surrounding entrapment.
Mandate or no mandate, not all complaints get investigated.
Hugh Despenser
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MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
Would you know you didn’t act as safety pilot on a specific date for someone with whom you’d never acted as safety pilot?
Not sure where you get this idea. I’ve reported two people to two different FSDOs and believe me, they investigated.
Yes. And even if I’m a buddy, I’m not lying the feds on his behalf. No chance.
So, if the FAA called you, informed you someone had listed you as a safety pilot for them on such-and-such date, and asked if you did it, your answer if you didn't have a clue would be:
(a) Yes.
(b) "I don't remember"
Chip Sylverne
Final Approach
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Quit with the negative waves, man.
If it were someone I clearly knew and fly with on a regular basis, I would probably say "I don't have any record, I don't log as safety pilot, but if he said I did, I have no reason to doubt his veracity ".
End of conversation.
For anyone interested in reading how the FAA Hotline works, here's the current Order 1070.1A - FAA Hotline Program.
Chip Sylverne
Final Approach
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Quit with the negative waves, man.
If you're asking if someone I didn't know claimed I right-seated for him, the answer would be " I don't know that person". Momma told me never to get in a plane and act as safety pilot with a stranger.
MooneyDriver78
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Tom
MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
No, I’m asking if you’d know you never right-seated for someone you hadn’t right-seated for.
Witmo
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Tim
Unfortunately there is a wide range of competence from FSDO to FSDO and from inspector to inspector.
Doc Holliday
En-Route
First of all, it’s Flight Standards District Office (FSDO), not FSBO.
And as usual, there’s parts of the story you are leaving out to make your point.
Please, you can continue your rant now.
B
Bigfake
Guest
I figured there would be issue with it, ive told him before id ride with him but he wont invite me and doesnt want to pay for a cfi. How would you go about trying to reverse this when the logbook is in black ink? I am trying to question him on it and press him to change his ways. Seems a line through the safety pilot name would look worse.
AvNavCom
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GroundLoopArtiste
He's not much of a "buddy". I'm utterly intolerant of this kind of stuff, so I would go direct to the FSDO/FAA, report the falsification to make it plain that I had no involvement, and make every effort to support jettisoning him from any aviation program anywhere, ever. If for some reason you value his certifications more than he apparently values yours and don't want to do the nuclear option, at a minimum I would demand to see his logbook and would personally one-line my name out of every entry. If he refuses, FSDO. I wouldn't give a crap that he had to explain it down the road. That dude is not your friend.
Tools
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Tools
So you go to the FSDO and complain. They interview the guy. He stands his grounds and says “yep, stands to reason he’d try to get me in trouble, he lost a football bet to me…”. How ya gonna prove you WERENT flying with him?
Big ole he says, she says… FAA likely gonna figure talking to BOTH of ya is gonna be enough to quash this (on its own merits) minor issue no matter who is lying and consider the safety issue mitigated. Next….
Big ole he says, she says… FAA likely gonna figure talking to BOTH of ya is gonna be enough to quash this (on its own merits) minor issue no matter who is lying and consider the safety issue mitigated. Next….
Stevel
Pre-takeoff checklist
My bad. I caught myself typing FBO and only halfway corrected it.
Not so.
You seem pretty confident of things that you can't know, and the accusation is inaccurate and offensive.
Doc Holliday
En-Route
An investigation sometimes ends with no findings. But it was investigated.
Big difference.
Sounds like he has no interest whatsoever in reversing it, so why bother with coming up with logbook correction strategies he won’t care about?
You mean other than by being out of town on business that day?
I guess you’ve never seen an investigation or dispute resolution of any kind where there are two opposing sides and evidence other than two sets of flapping gums is looked at. They literally happen every day (probably thousands every day). You might try watching People’s Court for a day or two.
Yes, some definitely end up with the equivalent of a “hung jury” but by far more get resolved.
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Nope. I don’t log it. Usually we’re swapping seats and I only log the time I’m in the left seat. I suppose that could prove we flew the same plane on the same day but not as each others SP.
Checkout_my_Six
Touchdown! Greaser!
Whatever you do....do go posting the video online.
bentmettle
Pre-Flight
Are you a problem solver? And is your “friend” a **** stirrer? Because this smells like someone messing with you. And that the someone probably is a drama magnet.
Guck Chrassley perhaps?That student is probably a member of congress now.
Yeah, thing is, if he creates a smoking hole at some point your name is in his logbook as a “safety pilot”. Who knows what that could lead to. One intermediate step I’d consider is talking to whoever runs the flight school about it.
Asking someone to prove a negative is a logical fallacy.
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Bob Noel
not always
bbchien
Touchdown! Greaser!
Hotline. I wouldn't stand for it. Then, it is out of the FSDO's hands, which is eternally attempting to shun work.
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Pilots of America Management
Thread closed, pending MC review.
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